Bill posted:.
"In coming to this discussion, Andy and I, for example, are interested in
different forms of activity. He, as an opponent of bourgeois society may
have sweeping reforms in mind, and I, I am keeping my vision focussed around
learning and teaching. So he and I, just by example again, are interested
in different aspects of Leont'ev. It seems we must be careful in insisting
the discussion must focus on X, when it is X, like the egg in making an
omellette, that may be something that some of us can take as a given."
I question whether keeping ones vision focused on "learning and teaching"
without taking into consideration (a) the historical separation of physical
and mental labor; (b) the relationship of teaching and learning (the
education industry) to the other branches of production in the social
division of labor can lead to a complete understanding of the phenomena, its
forms of appearance. Of course one might be able to determine better
techniques for doing whatever it is that is done in the classrooms through
such a focus but my own research has shown over and over again that
educational "problems" have less to do with pedagogy than with the entire
social context of education and the specific relationship of "schools" to
the rest of the students' lives.
I have been trying to hatch an egg that popped out with Dot's discussion of
internalization v appropriation: specifically her comment that
internalization also includes the internalization of "unconscious" elements.
A prime educational example is found in Eckhert's "Jocks and Burnouts".
Following in the tradition of Willis' "Learning to Labour", Eckert
demonstrates that one of the most important components of high school
students' education is the internalization of positions within a social
division of labor characteristic of the society as a whole. All of this
functions much to the side of what goes down in "Civics".
As to being able to make an omelette without knowing its history, or being
aware of the social division of labor that brings eggs to your refrigerator,
sure. You can also drive a car without knowing how to build one, wear shoes
without knowing how to make them, or tie a knot without understanding the
principles of counteracting forces. . And if the social division of labor
that produces cars were to be disrupted (no more oil, for example) then you
would simply stop driving, just as you would eat no omelettes without the
social divsion of labor that provides you with eggs.--hopefully this issue
will be more of a focus when we look at the transition from actions to
operations later in the reading, extending this from the level of individual
to that of social consciousness.
Paul H. Dillon
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Oct 01 2000 - 01:01:02 PDT